‘The worst days of my life’: how Covid-19 patients can recover from ICU delirium | Dorothy Wade
The trauma of intensive care often triggers long-term mental health problems, and counselling is crucial to rehabilitation
- Dr Dorothy Wade is principal psychologist for intensive care at University College Hospital and honorary associate professor at University College London
“Last night the porters took me down to the basement in a supermarket trolley. I was met by hooded monks who stole my soul and turned me into a zombie. I woke up in my own coffin.”
“I heard the nurses whispering about me in the night behind the blue curtains. They are plotting to murder me and my baby, and I saw one of them take a gun from her handbag.”
Related: ‘We could see this tsunami of people coming’: inside the secret world of intensive care
Dr Dorothy Wade is principal psychologist for intensive care at University College hospital, honorary associate professor at University College London, and co-chair of Psychologists in Intensive Care, UK (PINC-UK) and the post-Covid rehab psychology network